


Max, July 1998 - August 1998

by readyfreddie



Series: Max and Ace (working title) [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, M/M, there is a baby in this i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 10:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10762173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readyfreddie/pseuds/readyfreddie
Summary: Max is bequeathed a baby and...is very Max about it all.





	Max, July 1998 - August 1998

Maxfield Arthur Benjamin loves morphine. He loves morphine so fucking much that as soon as his doctor stops tapering him off oxycodone (which he doesn't love as much but is still fun) Max vows never to take an opiate for fun or otherwise again. He's craving them like mad right now and chain smoking because of it.  
His ribs have mostly healed up - it doesn't hurt to breathe anymore - but it's the 3rd of July and his ankle is still in a brace for another few weeks, while his arm is probably going to be in at least a soft cast till September or longer, which is shitty really because all of it makes it a pain in the ass to cart a carseat around.  
It's lunch time, so Karen's gone to get them sandwiches from the deli down the way, and Max is sitting outside the office on a metal folding chair, foot propped up on a flower planter box, blowing smoke downwind from the window, which is cracked open so he can hear if the phone rings or the baby cries.  
He's pretty deep into his book when Aaron pulls up outside the office in a Benjamin Construction pickup and saunters up the walk. "'Sup Benj?" He flicks Max on the forehead and Max swats at him with his book. Aaron's dusty and sweaty - his t-shirt is sticking to his chest - and Max wants to eat him up.  
"Ugh," he says, and holds out his good arm so Aaron can help him stand.  
Considering the shitshow March and April had been for them, May and June actually went pretty well, all things considered. That is, well, it could have been worse. After Max got the shit kicked out of him, their dads had sort of banded together and put their combined foots down: John Janczewski because keeping Aaron and Max apart had perpetuated the rumors about them in the first place (and maybe he had gone a little overboard with the turning over a new leaf in parenting thing), and Jeb Benjamin because those rumors had nearly gotten his kid killed dammit (and it's gotta be clear to anyone with eyes these kids are just friends, for gods sake - Max always has a posse of girlfriends and Ace is as masculine as a kid his age gets). A lot of Aaron's new rules are sticking around though, frustratingly: the 9pm curfew, the Sunday church attendance, and he's still not allowed to hang out at Shay's house at all, although he can hang out with Shay or Max if there are parents present.  
That's the key: Parents Present. Everywhere Aaron is there are parents present and it's driving Max insane. He's kissed Aaron maybe three times in two months, quick furtive things, and it's really not enough.  
Kiss number four is about to happen though. Aaron kicks the door shut and pulls him over to the wall beside it, where the view from outside the windows doesn't reach. Max melts into it, gripping Janny's waist under his shirt, pulling him flush against his chest and stomach. It feels like about two seconds before he hears the puttering of Karen's 1967 VW Bug. Aaron mutters expletives into his mouth, and Max nips Aaron's bottom lip once more before reluctantly letting go.  
The Bug's door slams, and Aaron squeezes his pinky briefly before looking around the office, perplexed. "Where's Sebastian?"  
"Who? Oh, yeah. He's under the desk."  
Which - yeah. Baby happened, on June 5th, which was so exactly to schedule Max's afraid the kid might continue to be that prompt his entire life, and totally make Max look bad.  
The worst part about it wasn't that Blair refused to let Aaron in the delivery room (Aaron was 100 percent ok with that) but that she refused to let anyone in but Max, and wouldn't let him out of her sight, and Max is pretty sure he has PTSD now - he can't see a pregant woman without having bloody flashbacks and feeling nauseated. The fucking nurses thought it was adorable, especially when they found out he and Blair were twins, so that didn't help. They kept trying to get him involved. And when the nurses had cleaned up the baby and put him on Blair's chest, she'd looked at the baby blankly for a moment, then picked him up clumsily and handed him haphazardly over to Max. "Here, you keep it." Then she'd promptly fallen asleep. The nurses were shocked silent for a moment, then decided that was adorable too after they blamed it on the drugs.  
The thing is, Blair was not kidding.  
She refused to even look at the baby, let alone hold the baby or feed the baby. Dotty left the baby's cot in Blair's room anyway, hoping proximity would help, and Blair just slept through him crying all night.  
By day three the kid still didn't have a name.  
"Look, I get it - you don't want the baby," Max said. "But - I mean - can we call it something besides Baby?"  
"You name it," Blair said. "I gave it to you, remember?" She rolled her eyes as if this should have been obvious, and after a moment Max - well, she had, hadn't she? (Slightly later on she would tell Max she'd begged her parents and the Janczewskis to let her put the baby up for adoption, and while John Janczewski had half-heartedly supported her, none of the other parents could stand the thought of their grandchild growing up in the world without knowing his real family, kept insisting Blair would change her mind once the baby was born, once she first held it in her arms. Said a mother's instinct would take over, Blair would see. But the mother's instinct never, ever kicked in.)  
After some consultation with Aaron, who'd just sort of seemed to float though the days since baby day in a sort of confused stupor, he and Max decided on Sebastian Eliot Benjamin-Janczewski - because go big or go home, right?  
And everyone seemed more worried about Blair, and her absolute refusal to be a mother, than the actual new child, so it was sort of Max and Aaron who got stuck with him.  
While Dotty and Sharon had urgent, whispered conversations about post partum depression, and Blair worked out in her room to get back to pre-baby shape and combed through Seventeen magazine for new makeup tips, happy as a clam now that she'd been relieved of her parasite, Max and Aaron moved the fucking cot down to Max's room off the kitchen, and somehow fumbled though feeding the baby, and burping it (gross), and changing it (really really really gross - there was a frantic internet search for "foul alien green goo in newborn diaper" and maybe a call to the pediatrician), and singing it to sleep.  
"The fuck are you singing to my kid?" Aaron smacked Max upside the head when he actually listened to the words of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." Which, maybe it's not the most appropriate song to sing to a child but Baby is an infant and does not yet speak english, and he likes the fucking song, alright? He also likes Greenday's "Longview" and...yeah. Maybe Max shouldn't be entrusted with a child, especially since "Baby Blue" sort of...sticks. (Because Max ends up nicknaming everything he loves.)  
But, the thing is, this baby has imprinted on Max. He's only really content with Max. He seems to be mostly ok with Aaron, tolerates Jeb, and then screams bloody murder at Sharon and Dotty (John - he seems to be leaving the situation alone). And while Max thinks this shows remarkable taste on Baby's part, Max is, according to those "in the know" really, really not a natural with babies. According to Dotty he holds it all wrong, he speaks to it all wrong (but really, Baby seems to appreciate his rambling discourses on appropriated jazz culture in the 50s more than Dotty's bizarre high-pitched baby speak). Baby Blue is FINE though. Max thinks they're getting along all right. Still, every day he seems to do some other fucking thing wrong.  
Because like, apparently, you aren't supposed to leave babies under desks when you go out for a smoke?  
"What the hell Benjy?" Aaron pulls Blue's car seat, where he hangs out during the day, out of the cubby spot where the knees go.  
"It's dark and out of the air conditioning?"  
Blue wails, and Aaron makes frantic ticking noises with his tongue, holding the baby against his chest.  
Max rolls his eyes. "Real smooth Jans."  
"What's wrong with him? Is he hungry?"  
"No, he just ate - he was having a food-coma nap in his baby cave and you woke him up!"  
"Well excuse me if I wanted to see my kid for a sec!"  
The thing is, Aaron seems to like his baby more than either of them thought he would, and honestly, he doesn't get to spend nearly as much time with him as Max. And Max would happily send Blue home with Aaron, but the Janczewskis won't have it - that's not part of what they agreed to. They agreed to financial support. So Aaron's face is scrunched up and distressed, because he has no idea what to do with the wriggly small spawn in his arms, and Max wants to run his hands over it, smooth all the scrunches out with his fingertips and thumbs.  
"Here -" he sighs. "Like - hold him a little sideways like this - yeah. Put his head right there so it won't fall off like everyone's always so worried about -"  
Jans snorts and Max bites back a smile. "Put your other hand there on his butt - he likes to have his ass patted. I dunno man, future pro athlete or maybe a sub."  
Aaron practically chokes, and Max wonders when he turned into such a prude when he hears Karen chuckling behind him. Whoops.  
"It's ok Ace, I'm 27, not your fucking grandma."  
She hands Max's sandwich to him, then, "To what do we owe the pleasure Ace?"  
"Oh!" Aaron says, startled, because Max can totally tell he forgot he came here for a reason probably. "Uh, Jeb sent me to get the thing he forgot."  
"The thing?" Max raises an eyebrow, taking Baby from him with his good arm, and pointing to the half sandwich he's laid out with the gimpy one.  
Aaron shoves it in his mouth and Karen winces, because his hands ARE a little dirty. So's the baby now, actually. Max dusts at his onesie sort of futily, then shrugs. It's not going to hurt anything. (Karen is biting her lip).  
"I'll know it when I see it. Dude, eat that." Aaron shoves the other half of pastrami and swiss at Max. He's always shoving food at Max lately - he does have a point though. Opiates kill his appetite and he's probably lost something like ten pounds.  
Karen just shakes her head and sits at her own desk.  
Normally, Max would've taken a job on his dad's crew for the summer, if he was any other contractor's son. But Max is Max, and he's clumsy as fuck and would've broken himself or some piece of expensive equipment before his first lunch break, if he weren't already broken in several places. So he spends his days helping Karen with the increased summer work load and watching the baby while Aaron works with Jeb and...constructs things.  
Aaron's mom hadn't been happy about that. He told Max later his mom had grand delusions of himself and Blair interning together over the summer at his Dad's law office. Thankfully, John Janczewski wasn't having two idiot teenagers in his office all summer, "falling back in love" as Sharon Janczewski envisioned, hoping that as a result they'd end up living happily ever after with Baby as like, teenage lawyers or some shit.  
"That's the worst thing I ever heard," Max said, and when he told Blair she cracked up. She's working at the frozen yogurt place downtown because the last thing she wants is to have anything to do with any Janczewskis ever, ever again.  
Max goes there after work to pick her up, carting Blue inside (and pulling a car seat in and out of a car with a gimp arm is really really awful, but they manage), and Blair makes him a cup of chocolate frozen yougurt covered in strawberry sauce and chocolate sprinkles, because she's always shoving food at him lately too. Which is nice. It's just - nice to be noticed, because all his parents have been worried about lately is Blair and her supposed PPD (which she doesn't have).  
"Where's Shay lately? I haven't seen him around at all," Blair says idly, just making conversation as she wipes down the soft serve machine and cleans up scattered sprinkles.  
"He a de wez," Max says, his mouth full of chocolate and strawberry heaven, then, swallowing, "Sorry. He's at the res. At the fireworks stand. The fireworks stand on the reservation, where they sell fireworks every year. It's the day before the fourth of July, moron."  
"Oh, yeah, sorry, I always forget his dad's Native."  
Honestly, sometimes Max does too - Shay doesn't look at all Indian, unlike Geo, who's very obviously Quinault.  
"So he's not going to the Janczewski's thing tomorrow?"  
Because of fucking course Sharon fucking Janczewski is having an all day barbeque and pool party, and of course the Benjamins are expected to be there, when all Max wants is to find a secluded place to park where they can still see the fireworks from Morrison Park and hotbox the car with Janny and maybe get his hands down Jans' pants - which. Baby. No hotboxing. But they could still do the hands down the pants thing...  
"Why do you care about Shay all the sudden?" it occurs to Max then to ask, because Blair has never given Shay Gallagher the time of day, unlike all the other girls.  
She doesn't get a chance to answer, because the bell on the door jingles and they both turn to see Sara freaking Denny and Katie Jordan walk in. "Hi Max! We saw your car outside!" Sara throws an arm over his shoulder and kisses him full on the mouth.  
"Oh my god!" Katie squeals. "Is this your new nephew? He's so cute!"  
And maybe Jordan and Denny are obnoxious and loud but - they've been weirdly sweet since Max got beat up. Those two and the Carter brothers have STOOD UP for Max so often since -  
Max was a little ashamed when realized that while he'd never thought of any of them as friends, exactly, evidently he'd been their friend all along.  
It REALLY threw him for a loop when he found out Topher knew about him and Katie from the start. It'd been the four of them and Max, out on a semi abandoned forest service road Noel knew about - this was the end of May, the first really nice Saturday of the year, before Blue happened, and Aaron wasn't allowed out and Shay was working - and they were drinking shitty beer and smoking weed in the back of Noel's pickup, and the girls had run off to pick flowers or some shit. And Topher had awkwardly (stonedly) thanked Max for being so nice to Katie. And Max had just looked at him blankly, like - "the fuck?"  
"I mean, like, that girl is a nympho. Like, I really love her, like, a lot man. And like, I want to be with her FOREVER. I know we're only 17 but it works out sometimes right? But she is TOO MUCH to handle sometimes. Like, who the fuck can even FUCK that much? I can't. My fucking dick can't fucking handle it."  
And Noel was helplessly laughing, huddled up in the back corner of the truck bed, hand sheilding his eyes, "Oh my god bro -" and Max was sitting there with his jaw still slack with shock, then "Who the fuck turns down SEX? Well besides you obviously Carter."  
And Topher just shrugged a shoulder, completely unashamed - because, as Max is still learning, Topher is just an utterly chill being - "Whatever man. It is what it is, you know? But that's why you're PERFECT for Katie. You're always super gentlemanly to the ladies, and always make sure they come first," (Max sputtered, because they'd obviously talked about him in bed and - Fucking A) "...and you don't make her feel bad for liking sex so much and for telling you what she wants, and you're a fucking nympho too!" he finished with pleased satisfaction, and Max...well. Katie and Topher are probably the healthiest relationship he's ever heard of, and he hopes they stay together forever too.  
And then Topher wandered off to find the girls and Noel had asked how he was holding up without Aaron, and Max had his mind blown for the second time that afternoon, because Aaron had never had a chance to tell him what went down after Max had been carted away in an ambulance (at the time, Max had just been so, so grateful Aaron somehow hadn't gotten involved in the fight itself, because if Janny had been hurt too...).  
"Your boy is an amazing actor. Like, if I hadn't been cleaning up his sobbing ass in the bathroom right before, I would never, ever have guessed he wasn't fucking disgusted at people thinking you were anything more than friends. Like, damn. He left Gillespie and that cop totally ashamed of themselves for thinking they could've ever thought you were even a little bit homo. He went full on righteous on their asses."  
Max felt fuzzily warm knowing someone else appreciated the fucking awesomeness of Aaron.  
"He like, really really loves you man," Noel was saying, shaking Max out of a near doze.  
"I like, really really love him back man," Max said, after yawning, because he does, and now he knows Noel gets it.  
"And he's like, ok with your..." Noel waved his hand vaguely at Max, "...nymphoness? Like Topher is with Katie?"  
"Yeah. Like, we talked about it." Max closed his eyes, because he missed Janny like a missing limb. Except he had all of his limbs, and two of them hurt like a sonovabitch.  
"That's so cool."  
And it is, Max realized. And he hopes him and Aaron stay together forever like Topher and Katie will.  
Katie, right now, is leaning down over Blue, cooing over his itty bitty fingernails (which are a fucking bitch to cut, Max has learned, but pretty coo-worthy), and Sara's talking to him. "What?"  
"I SAID it's been forever since we've seen you and where have you been?"  
"Working, duh. I told you like, on the last day of school I'd be working for my dad every day."  
"But like, you don't even come out at night anymore? It's summertime dude!"  
And Katie is talking to Blair, like - "Girl, what do you mean you...gave him to Max? You just - you just GAVE your BABY to your BROTHER?"  
Blair shrugs. "I know this makes me sound like a stone cold bitch but like, I never actually wanted him. I was trying to do the right thing by actually giving birth to him, but I wanted to give him up for adoption. My fucking parents wouldn't let me. I don't want to be anyone's mother. So, you know. But I think Ace kinda wanted to keep him, so I gave the kid to Max. I trust Max. The kid doesn't like anyone BUT Max. And Max is a good daddy, aren't you bro?"  
Max tips his head back and sighs, pushes his half-eaten cup of yogurt away. Absently, he wonders when Blue will be able to appreciate chocolate. He waits for the onslaught.  
After several beats of silence, Sara loses her shit. She's laughing so hard she's crying, and pounding her hand on the table. After a moment, Katie starts giggling too, manicured hand covering her mouth when she starts snorting.  
Of course this causes Blue to join in the cacaphony, but not in a good way, and Max has him out of the carseat in flash, holding him against his chest trying to soothe Blue's startled wails, as he glares at the girls. Blair just smirks at him.  
"Oh my god I'm sorry," Katie says to him, still giggling in gasps. "I didn't mean to scare him."  
"Oh man," Sara wipes her eyes. Blair hands her a napkin. "Girl, that is BOLD. First off, your parents are dicks. Like, total tools. But then you just hand your baby over to its daddy's boyfriend, like - OH MY GOD. You have cojones, chicky."  
Max chokes a little, because they're in fucking PUBLIC, but they are the only people in the yogurt shop, so. (And yeah, Jordan and Denny know about him and Aaron, and Topher knows too, because he trusts them now and it's just...nice to have people who know. It's somehow - validating?)  
But Blair just smirks again, before breaking into laughter with them. She's pretty in a way Katie and Sara aren't. Like, Katie and Sara are pretty in the way lots of teenage girls are, when they cover their skin in makeup to smooth out spotty complexions and pluck their brows and paint their lips and highlight their cheekbones. Blair is pretty in a classical, "someone's gonna want to take pictures of that face someday" way, and she's quiet and nerdy at school, and he thinks sometimes girls like Katie and Sara are intimidated of that, and therefore really don't give her the time of day. It's nice to see Blair-Bear actually laughing for once, not worried about what the adults she's trying to impress think about her. This whole "refusing to be a mother" thing is good for her Max thinks. It really has given her balls. And, apparently a sense of humor. He hadn't quite realized what Blair was doing when she'd bequeathed a baby on him. He should've known she's still just an absolute shit, just like he is, under her girl-bot facade.  
*  
The Fourth of July party at the Janczewskis is just as tedious as Max expected. Blair is allowed to not go, because the yogurt shop is open for the day and she has to work, and Max suspects his parents don't want her explaining to all the people who ask her about Blue that she gave her infant child to her brother and doesn't want anything to do with it. Blair's started really opening up about that lately, vocally trying to tell anyone who will listen she is not anyone's mother. And THEIR mother is at the end of her wits trying to keep Blair quiet. So Max is sitting in a lawn chair next to Aaron, his casted foot propped up on a cooler, watching his mom cart Blue around in his carier, showing him off to people, claiming they're "giving his mommy a break for the day." (Jans snickers, tousles Max's hair, saying sotto-voice, "how do you like your nice break, mommy dearest?" and Max bonks him over the head with his unopened Dr Pepper can and then makes Aaron get him another.) This works out just fine of course until Blue wakes up, realizes he's surrounded by women, including, probably, the one who always talks to him in that funny high-pitched voice, and starts wailing. And Aaron, fidgiting in his lawnchair, is able to put up with that for about thirty seconds before he pops up, claims his kid, and swiftly brings him back to Max.  
"Dude, I hate it when does that. Make him stop. Please."  
"You make him stop," Max grumbles, but frees the small red ball of angst from its carrier. Blue, of course, stops.  
"Do you think he's like, hungry or wet or whatever?"  
"Nah, not yet. We've only been here like, an hour and I did all that before we left." Max pulls a blanket over Blue's head, because it's glaringly sunny and sunburns hurt. Blue waves around a little fist, like he's about to protest, but settles down.  
"Benjy," Aaron says, and smiles at him brighter than the fucking sunshine, disguises a pinkie squeeze in a complicated fist bump. "You're so fucking good at this stuff. It's like, awesome. I love it."  
And Max can tell he really means "I love you" and feels embarrassingly squishy inside, because of that and because Aaron and Blair seem to be the only ones who think he's any good at the baby stuff, in spite of everyone leaving him to do like, ALL OF IT anyway.  
"Aw, look at that, baby's napping with his uncle." Max squints up. Coach Gillespie and Mrs Gillespie are standing there. Coach looks a little uncomfortable (as he should, Max thinks spitefully, for thinking Max was a fucking rapist), and Mrs Gillespie just looks condescending. "But don't you think he's suffocating under that blanket sweetheart?" And yeah, she's so fucking condescending. "Maybe you'd better give him to his daddy."  
Aaron, because he's Aaron, opens his mouth to probably say something rude in Max's defense, so Max elbows him and hands Blue over. He snaps his mouth shut and glares at Max like, Dude, not cool, and Max just rolls his eyes and jerks his head like, C'mon, not the time Jans. Aaron leaves the blanket over Blue's face, because he's not fucking suffocating, Max has left an airspace and arranged it so it's actually a few inches up off his face, fucking Gillespies. And Shannon fucking Gillespie is standing a couple feet behind them, holding her own stupid baby, and just STARING at him. And Max is just thinking, fuck, fuckity fuck, what if she SAYS something, what if...he sort of wants to see the baby's face, but -  
Jans is elbowing him, and he looks up at Mrs Gillespie, who's apparently talking to him, "so sorry about what happend to you Matt."  
(Coach looks even more embarrassed but doesn't correct her since Max isn't correcting her.)  
"Did you get the flowers we sent?"  
Max just swallows and nods, because fucking -  
He'd had Shay give them to the patient across the hall, and gee, thanks Gillespie family you collective bunch of assholes, now he can't stand gladiolus (although he hadn't had an opinion about it either way in the first place).  
They spend some time being patronizing to Aaron about his new status as a parent, and probably giving him supercilious advice, like most people seem to feel is their right, and Max just zones out until they eventually wander off.  
"Benjy," Aaron's nudging him gently. "Benj."  
"Huh? Oh. Hey."  
"Where'd you go?"  
"I just -" Max, well, he's never actually told anyone about what happened with Shannon fucking Gillespie, and what a fucking spaz he turns into every time he sees her. He KNOWS nothing like that is ever going to happen again, but his head is apparently still so fucked up - he squints, and swallows down a lump, and reaches for Blue. Aaron hands him over, looking concerned. Max settles the baby against his chest and breathes in deeply against his bald head. "It's nothing." Because it SHOULD be nothing. Max should be better than that. There's no reason to -  
"Let's just go in," Aaron says. "It keeps getting hotter out here. I don't want Blue to like, boil over or whatever."  
Max pictures Blue erupting green goo like a broken radiator and wrinkles his nose, and then Aaron smacks a hand over his mouth. "Aw shit. SeBASTian. Fuck man, you've got me doing it now too."  
Startled, Max guffaws, and Blue squirms against him.  
They make their way inside, Max limping along with Blue, and Aaron carting the diaper bag and Blue's carrier, and collapse on the couch in the den, which is still cool in the heat of the afternoon with the drapes drawn tightly shut. They leave the door open, because god forbid they be found together ever again behind a closed door, and collapse on the couch. Max falls asleep for a while with his head against Janny's shoulder while Janny watches a rerun of The Fresh Prince of BelAir, and wakes up later feeling comfortable again in his skin.  
*  
In August, John Janczewski, who'd been working quietly on Max's behalf since the end of April, settles out of court with his assailants and the school district for a total of $400,000 - half from the school district for negligence (because fucking Greer had just WATCHED), and half from the family of two of the six guys, cousins whose family have a shit load of timber money, because they really really don't want their sons to go to jail. Max is pretty sure if something like what had happened to him happened in Seattle or Tacoma or something it wouldn't have been tied up so neatly, but he lives in a smallish town and it's easier to get away with things like letting six fucking kids and a teacher just walk away. Honestly, Max doesn't really care. He doesn't have to worry about money for like, a decade if he isn't extravagant or anything. He doesn't have to worry about Blue being taken care of while he's in college, doesn't -  
Aaron nudges his his knee under the table, and Max looks over at him. They're sitting around eating frozen yogurt, waiting for Blair to get off work, because Sharon Janczewski has decided Blair is an acceptable chaperone, which is hilarious, because they could actually be half naked in front of Blair and she wouldn't even blink. She simply does not care. Blair has lightened up a lot since giving birth, partly because of the whole growing balls thing, and partly because her church friends more or less turned their backs on her for the whole teenage motherhood thing, and then not wanting to be a mother at all. It's all good though, Max actually doesn't mind having his sister around now, it's sort of like they used to be, before high school happened and Blair and Max were seperated by this weird moral line. Which is convenient, because basically Blair is their ticket to freedom. Anywhere Max and Aaron take Blair they are free to go - even to Shay's house. Sharon Janczewski assumes Blair would never condone smoking weed. But then, Sharon Janczewski is often wrong about a lot of things.  
"'Sup Jans?" Aaron's face is shadowed under the brim of his baseball cap, but Max can see he's grinning, and he twines their pinkies together under the table, because he fucking can, and that makes him happy.  
"You're spacing out again dude," Aaron says.  
"Just..." Max shrugs. "I dunno. Everything is...like. Everything's alright? And it's making me kind of nervous."  
Aaron laughs, then lets go of Max's pinkie to rub his face with both hands. "I know, I know," he says, muffled behind them. He rests his chin on a fist, reaching for Blue's blanket with his other hand, covering bare toes. "But like - my grandma used to say this thing. Like, 'don't go borrowing trouble,' she'd say. So, maybe just be happy for a minute?"  
Sara Denny comes in towing Geo, because apparently that's a thing now. "My dudes! My boys! My cute little parental units!" Sara greets, making an entrance as usual. She knocks the bill of Aaron's cap down over his eyes, smacks a kiss onto Max's mouth, and leans over to coo at Blue. She's followed in after a few moments by Katie and Topher, Katie is yelling something about bitches and broken sandals and riding on Topher's back.  
"My dudes!" Topher says, carefully unloading Katie off his back and onto a table top. "My lady," he bows at Blair. "Wanna grab a bunch of burgers and smoke a bunch of weed and hang out at the park? 'Rique found a frisbee."  
Aaron shrugs. "I'm in. Benj?"  
"Fuck frisbee. "That one -" Max points at Blue's carrier, "- screamed all night, but I will totally eat burgers and smoke weed and take a nap under a tree."  
"Yeah, sure," Blair says. "I dunno about burgers but I'll definitely take the chance to throw frisbees at Ace's head head all night."  
Aaron throws his empty yogurt cup at her head and she ducks, so it misses, but it spatters little pink drops of melted yogurt everywhere.  
"Oh fuck you Ace."  
Shay and Enrique come through the door. "So we got the Benjamins in on this or what?"  
"And a Janczewski," Ace answers Shay, and Shay snorts.  
"Sure Ace."  
"Right, uh huh," Enrique laughs, and Max joins in as Aaron turns bright red.  
"Shut the fuck up."  
And ok, Janny's right. Max'll leave trouble where it belongs - not here right now.


End file.
